One day earlier this year, I strolled past the Arnold Bennett statue in Bethesda Street, Hanley, noting with great sadness that someone had daubed red paint across this excellent and life-like sculpture.

Happily, by the time I had finished my business and was walking back, the council had sent someone out to remove the stain, once again revealing the statue in all its glory.

It’s an attractively accessible figure that invites the public to interact with it.

Not in the manner of smearing paint over it, you understand, but you can sit with it and have your photograph taken with it.

Hanley's famous Spikey Man

Having, in the past, sat alongside statues of writer Patrick Kavanagh on the Grand Canal, Dublin, and with former miner Freddie Gilroy, overlooking Scarborough’s North Bay, I was delighted when Bennett’s image was unveiled in 2017.

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I love the faithful depictions of Bennett, Sir Stanley Matthews and Reginald Mitchell in the city centre, but there are some attractive conceptual offerings too.

How about Anthony Beetlestone’s Mother and Child, located in the Bethesda Gardens?

Anthony Beetlestone's Mother and Child sculpture

It represents the motif of rebirth and new life and more broadly, urban regeneration.

The piece’s well-rounded figures remind me a little of Birmingham’s Forward statue which had a similarly optimistic message, but which was mocked and derided by some prior to its deliberate destruction in 2003.

So by comparison, our Arnold got off lightly – but doesn’t art have a duty not only to please but to challenge us and even to annoy us?

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In a recent blog for my book publisher, I mused that something akin to Blackpool’s famous Comedy Carpet might work well in Market Square, Hanley – especially if, rising majestically above it, was an iconic structure similar to the Dublin Spire.

The best public art teaches, inspires and perhaps even messes with your mind. It rips up old paradigms and boosts a city’s cultural wellbeing.

And it’s often the case that we grow to like challenging concepts in time.

When David Wynne’s Man of Fire was removed from the front of Debenhams for renovation in 2003, many people missed it.

Not everyone admires it, and if you look at the plaque that is incorporated in the paved area around it, you’ll know exactly who is to blame.

The culprits include the sculptor, Denis O’Connor, the city council and several consultants on the project, including local schools and one Mervyn Edwards.

Incidentally, I like it very much!

n Mervyn will present a Green Door History 4 Health walk entitled The Hanley Sculpture Trail on Monday. It starts promptly at 11am from outside Hanley Town Hall in Albion Square. Admission is £2, pay on the day.